Informix IDS 10 - Windows 32 bits - ontape - recomendation
Guillermo Villanueva planned weekly level-0 and daily level-1 ontape backups on Windows plus a cloned VM. Art Kagel: block the server (onmode -c block/unblock) around a live clone, or clone with Informix offline. Marcus Haarmann: a restore needs the same Informix release and chunk paths of at least the same size; dbexport is portable across platforms but has no incrementals.
Auto-generated by Claude from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
Hi, I am going to use ontape in my contingency plan, I will make one level 0 backup weekly and daily level 1 backups. I will copy the backup files to an external storage.
I will also clone the windows machine once and have that clone for a possible full restore.
Do you have any suggestions to give me?
In which cases should I clone the windows server again?
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guillermo villanueva
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Guillermo:
That all sounds good. One note: before you make the snapshot/clone of the Windows environment, put the Informix server into a static state with "onmode -c block" then take the clone, the release the server with "onmode -c unblock". If you do not, you may not be able to use the snapshot as the Informix instance may be in an inconsistent state, with critical data not flushed to disk a the time of the cloning.
Art
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Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant
ASK Database Management Corp.
www.askdbmgt.com
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Thank you very much for the recommendation! Is it also an option to clone the windows with the informix stopped? In which cases or in case of what kind of modifications should I consider renewing the windows clone? ------------------------------ guillermo villanueva ------------------------------
Yes, if the Informix instance is offline the clone will be fine. Not a Windows guy, so no help there. ------------------------------ Art S. Kagel, President and Principal Consultant ASK Database Management Corp. www.askdbmgt.com ------------------------------
Thank you Art! ------------------------------ guillermo villanueva ------------------------------
My apologies Art, regarding windows maybe I did not explain myself well (in my very basic English), I was referring to:
My idea is to make a " single" copy of the complete server on which I would make a possible data recovery from incremental backups.
Faced with what kind of changes in the informix engine, should I make a new copy of the complete windows machine to make it suitable for a recovery?
I ask in another way: What operating system and informix configuration requirements does ontape have to be able to restore a L0 and L1 backup on windows?
Does the windows version have to be exactly the same?
Does the informix directory configuration have to be exactly the same?
Do the dbspace and chunks have to be exactly the same?
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guillermo villanueva
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Hi,
in order to restore an ontape backup, you will need the same Informix release on the destination machine.
The chunks need be present under the same path names with minimum the same capacity
(later versions have the ability
to rename chunk path names while restoring).
I would not guess the Windows version does matter, but I did not try (most of the people are using Linux/Unix).
In Linux, the OS version in my experience does not matter, as long as Informix in the same version can be installed successfully.
A dbexport based output would be restorable over platforms (Windows dbexport can be restored in a linux Informix, even
with a different minor/major release). But you cannot do incremental backups with dbexport.
Best,
MARCUS HAARMANN